Incredibly addictive. Just as I thought I'd finally "grown up" and stopped playing PC games for good, Planetside 2 comes out and I find myself completely immersed in the gameplay. This game takes advantage of my decent PC hardware, so I am able to max out all settings and WOW the game really does look incredibly beautiful. At night, playing as Vanu, I see my empire mates' tank shells flyIncredibly addictive. Just as I thought I'd finally "grown up" and stopped playing PC games for good, Planetside 2 comes out and I find myself completely immersed in the gameplay. This game takes advantage of my decent PC hardware, so I am able to max out all settings and WOW the game really does look incredibly beautiful. At night, playing as Vanu, I see my empire mates' tank shells fly and they cast a blinding bright light that itself casts shadows as it wheezes by. I do have a deep concern about this game, though, which is why I've lowered my score from 10 to 8. It's addictive today, it'll be addictive tomorrow, .. but unlike some other sci-fi MMOs like, say, EVE Online, Planetside 2 really has absolutely no depth. There's no point in the chaotic fighting, except to just fight. After seeing my empire capture entire continents now four or five times since the game's launch (this review comes just a week or to after launch) I'm certain I'm going to get bored by the fact that there really is no point. Capturing a continent gets you bonus spending "money" for vehicles and aircraft, but there's no other real point. There's certainly no real story; I've come across a couple hack story ideas (some from Sony) on forums and blogs but there really is no story within the game, you're just out there fighting and respawning, ad nauseum.

There's also no real point in which empire you choose other than favorite music and colors. They're all pretty much the same. Oh, there are variations in vehicle speeds and power, but Sony played it very safe here on the balancing act and trying to keep all factions equal.

The shooter side of the game is solid, if sometimes a little bit plastic. Usually not, but sometimes I feel like I'm using a toy gun from Wal-mart. Sometimes the sound is weak and damage effect is light. The sniper rifle and the shotgun, for example, have no oomph, I suppose the sound engineers must not have very good speakers because I have studio monitors and these feel thin.

Overall, this is a fun game and being free it's definitely worth a shot. I would compare it best to Tribes: Ascend but on a much, much larger map scale in a persistent universe of equally absent meaning.…Expand

A truly epic game. BF3 on a massive scale, and whether your preference is flying, tanking or infantry, you will immense fun. All 3 playstyles are well implemented, and have a significant role to play in the game. There are myriad guns, explosives, and weaponry to choose from, and customizing your trooper / vehicle is a lot of fun. These can be trialed for 30 mins before you spend yourA truly epic game. BF3 on a massive scale, and whether your preference is flying, tanking or infantry, you will immense fun. All 3 playstyles are well implemented, and have a significant role to play in the game. There are myriad guns, explosives, and weaponry to choose from, and customizing your trooper / vehicle is a lot of fun. These can be trialed for 30 mins before you spend your cash/cert points too …Expand

The incredible scale of this game is amazing, when you and a few hundred other team mates go head to head with another couple hundred people to try and claim as much land as possible.
Though at first when you start the game it can be a bit overwhelming mainly because it is so big and so many people to kill you end up learning who is more of a threat and where to spawn to quickly get inThe incredible scale of this game is amazing, when you and a few hundred other team mates go head to head with another couple hundred people to try and claim as much land as possible.
Though at first when you start the game it can be a bit overwhelming mainly because it is so big and so many people to kill you end up learning who is more of a threat and where to spawn to quickly get in the fight with out getting killed straight away.
I thoroughly enjoy this game and will continue to play as it is so different having a good fps mmo game that has such a great community (ask for help and you will probley get it due to the nature of the game you need to help team mates to concore as much ground as possible)…Expand

Pointlessly overcomplicated Noob killing fest. Let's start, that my experience on online shooters ranges from the early-early Desert Combat games, all the way to BF3. I'm not really into the MMORPG, but for this review, doesn't need any.
So, let's start with the positives. I like the idea. I like the ambitious effort and pushing the envelope to make online shooters progress to new,Pointlessly overcomplicated Noob killing fest. Let's start, that my experience on online shooters ranges from the early-early Desert Combat games, all the way to BF3. I'm not really into the MMORPG, but for this review, doesn't need any.
So, let's start with the positives. I like the idea. I like the ambitious effort and pushing the envelope to make online shooters progress to new, uncharted territories. I like the idea of giant battlefields and mixture of doing different things at once. I also like the seems to be endless upgrades and making the players progress somewhere, let that be new weapons, outfits, vehicles and higher ranks. All these are all present but a diamond in a rough form in Planetside 2. Here comes my rant. I can understand the fact, that after a while everyone gets a grip of what is going on and how to read the map and figure out how to upgrade etc. But I'm afraid, it may be too late by then, since the immediate impression will turn off many, before they would start become interesting. Lacking any tutorials, or perhaps off-line maps with bots would help a lot. Almost all games we play including shooters- has some sort of an introduction into the mechanics and/or a walk through in real-time (not youtube videos!) In other words The game is making every newbie UNWELCOME. 1. Sign up; choose your passwords; pick a class; pick a side
2. Get dropped into the battlezone and get shot dead.
3. Try different things; run around the map; be confused about many things, get shot dead within a few minutes. 4. Rinse and repeat step 2 and 3 for a while. ...
Problems right off from the first impression: I. The mini map is utterly confusing and pointlessly over complicated to a point, where it isn't even functioning as a map. Congested and displaying all sorts of stuff not really useful, or just simply too much. I'm not sure if it can be customized or not, I haven't found the option yet, which I would assume most newbie neither. II. The whole design of the large deployment map. I'm trying to figure out, if there are any differences between the middle; the corners and between, regarding what buildings/terrain/objectives variations there are, but after 9-10 hours of gameplay, it all looks like a photoshop pattern of basically repeating features and buildings. Actually, giving in a thought, they could have used 1/4 of the size of the maps, since it doesn't really matter when you get dropped into the fight zone, you know exactly what buildings you gonna find and you just gonna follow to find the power generators and the capture points. There isn't a memorable location, since you won't be able to memorize much, but you will know exactly what is what. III. Upgrades. There seems to be unlimited number of upgrades, but they all seem to be unreachable for those, who doesn't want to spend a bucket load of money. I leave that right there.
IV. Balance. Many game in similar category gives the players the chance to familiarize themselves with the game, so they usually give the option of servers, based on experience level. We could have novice, intermediate and pro servers, just for this purpose. They could have made the game, that a newbie could enjoy a pro-server, but count on being the cannon fodder, but perhaps reward his bravery by making him gain exp. points faster, than on a noob server. Same deal in reverse. Pro player joining with high hopes of mass murdering the noobs, would end up not gaining much, perhaps revoke their super-duper maxed out equipment and make them fight with the basic given weapon and outfit. Or perhaps "ship" the pro players to a new planet or continent, where they face off similar high-level pro players. But no. Instead pro players seem to be mass-r.ping the newbies to gain more exp. points. Basically the game rewards those, who rather play like bullies, while leaving the newcomer in the dust. It may sound fun, if you got the equipment, but eventually it will destroy the game on the long run. Why? Because new people won't be joining, and old pro-players may just move on to whatever newer game come out in the near future. Eventually the servers will be abandoned to a point, where you gonna have these giant maps and only 10-20 people playing instead of 100. V. No real rewards. Weapons, outfits, masks, optics, extra ammo all sounds great, but what's the point? You gonna be doing the same thing with them over and over! What happened to rewards given to teams? Or what about giving rewards for platoons and factions, who conquered half of the map? What's good about having 3/4 of the map conquered compared to only half or 1/4 of it? Nothing. There should be team/platoon/squad based experiences given. How about a tactical nuke, or ability to call in airstrikes, indirect/direct artillery or orbital strike? Just some ideas. As of right now, this game is still just a newbie-hostile beta test, with missing objectives and limited real feel of progress.…Expand

For new players this game is the worst. There is no learning area, you are thrown into battle without a clue and put up against the games seasoned p2w players and just killed at will. The game offers no path to learn the game. I can not stress how this is the worst game to start as a new player. The vendor greed is totally shown and knows no bounds. The frustration can not beFor new players this game is the worst. There is no learning area, you are thrown into battle without a clue and put up against the games seasoned p2w players and just killed at will. The game offers no path to learn the game. I can not stress how this is the worst game to start as a new player. The vendor greed is totally shown and knows no bounds. The frustration can not be described. It's enough that I don't even think I try anything Sony puts out again nor anything else with the Sony name on it. I can't get over the greed of this vendor to start asking for money before you can play or even see how to play. The frustration is beyond words. That aside, the game also froze twice adding even more to the frustration.…Expand

I played this game for four hours and this game is insanely overrated. Have fun figuring out what to do given the fact that if your new the servers population doesnt give a sh*t about you. I couldnt even find enemys in my four hour game time do to the fact i kept getting team killed by players who just thought it was hilarious to spawn kill all of thier team mates coming out of theI played this game for four hours and this game is insanely overrated. Have fun figuring out what to do given the fact that if your new the servers population doesnt give a sh*t about you. I couldnt even find enemys in my four hour game time do to the fact i kept getting team killed by players who just thought it was hilarious to spawn kill all of thier team mates coming out of the teleporters. There is little to no weapon balance as begginer players will get destroyed ans stand no chance until the rank up and your crazy if you want me to play for 12+ hours to just be on even ground. So overall if your not a fan already, ignore this garbage.…Expand

Planetside 2 is a game where the execution does not live up to the potential of the concept. It's just about better than average, but far too often your enjoyment will be overshadowed by frustration at the developers' bad decisions. Let's list a few.

1 Bad approach to population balance. During beta, the character population was skewed towards NC. That's not surprising, since thePlanetside 2 is a game where the execution does not live up to the potential of the concept. It's just about better than average, but far too often your enjoyment will be overshadowed by frustration at the developers' bad decisions. Let's list a few.

1 Bad approach to population balance. During beta, the character population was skewed towards NC. That's not surprising, since the NC is presented as freedom fighters, while the TR are presented as fascist oppressors and the VS as cultist weirdos. Turns out not too many people want to play as fascists or cultists who knew? The smart solution would have been to directly address the problem by making the TR and VS more appealing (for example, by giving VS characters less ridiculous attire). Instead, SOE decided to give those two factions buffs while nerfing the NC so to solve an unbalanced population, we got unbalanced game play.

2 Bad approach to game balance. The game developers made a bunch of balance decisions early in the game's life cycle, before the game had a chance to mature. For example, in the early months of the game, air units were very effective because many players had not yet unlocked viable anti-air weapons (and none of the default weapons can play a meaningful anti-air role). The smart option would have been to make AA weapons easier to unlock, so more players could start using those weapons and the true Air vs. Ground balance could be observed. Instead, SOE buffed existing AA weapons and added new ones while the game was still young and players were still figuring it out. Fast-forward a month or two, and now everybody and their dog has unlocked a bunch of buffed AA options, and to fly aircraft anywhere near a meaningful battle is to invite a metric ton of flak fire and a few dozen lock-on missiles.

3 No account verification. SOE decided to let anyone create an account with no verification procedure (e.g., no credit card check, no telephone number check, no address check, etc.). This means that anyone who wants to hack, exploit, or otherwise cheat can very easily make a new dummy account for that purpose. If they're caught, who cares? They can just go back to their main account, or simply make a new account.

4 Over-reliance on player reports to catch cheaters. Instead of investing in automated cheat-detection, SOE decided it would be easier to just let the players report cheaters. Unfortunately, this approach will only catch out the obvious cheats, and will take a lot longer to find the subtle hackers, if it every catches them at all.

5 Players can create characters on opposing factions on the same server. Initially, SOE did not allow this, which made sense. Then for no good reason whatsoever, they decided to make it possible. Now, a player can have characters from all three factions on the same server. Why is that a problem? Well, let's say a player has an NC character as his main, but also maintains an alternative TR character. If at any point this player is using his main NC character and is being overrun by the TR, he can go switch to his TR character and start sabotaging the attacking TR forces from behind to relieve the pressure on his real NC teammates. Way to think ahead.

6 Too much MMO and not enough FPS. Bottom line, this game is decided more by who has unlocked (or paid to unlock) more powerful weapons and upgrades, instead of being decided by who is the more skilled player. SOE is very happy releasing more and more easy-to-use weapons that it can sell (e.g., spray-and-pray SMGs, lock-on rocket launchers, and the recently cancelled implants) instead of trying to find ways to raise the skill ceiling and create more rewarding gameplay.…Expand

>Frustrating and not fun describes my initial reaction to this game
This guy said it best in his review
bi0mech81
Frustrating and not fun describes my initial reaction to this game. First and foremost is the learning curve. from the start you spawn in the middle of a fight with nothing telling you what your objectives are, or even where your teammates are. Should you be unfortunate>Frustrating and not fun describes my initial reaction to this game
This guy said it best in his review

bi0mech81

Frustrating and not fun describes my initial reaction to this game. First and foremost is the learning curve. from the start you spawn in the middle of a fight with nothing telling you what your objectives are, or even where your teammates are. Should you be unfortunate enough to spawn in the middle of a tank fight (as was my first experience) you feel helpless as you die, respawn, and die again as soon as you respawn. An in-game "Newbie" area, some kind of zone where you go only when you first start a character would be greatly appreciated as throughout my first hour of gameplay I was consistantly pitted against players of level 38 or higher. The extremely large playing area makes snipers and tanks gods on the ground. I have not been able to fly any of the aircraft, yet because everytime I spawn an air vehicle it is destroyed immediately. I'm not an avid FPS player by any stretch of the means- I grew up on Doom, Quake, and UT, and I manage about a 1:1 Kill to death ratio in CoD, and tend to play support roles in TF2. On average I have 2 kills and over 50 deaths in planet side due to spawn camping. spawning at a point that is distant from the battle just means I get to run for 10 minutes to die from a sniper that I can't see. Playing a supporting role in PS2 is down right rage-inducing. Healing a friendly player may or may not reward XP, and unlike TF2, you cannot heal a heavy to keep them up while they sustain gunfire. Reviving fallen players is fairly pointless unless they died less than 2 seconds in front of you. The Engineer's turret is too inaccurate for the distances at which forces are regularly engaged in. The tanks are done well- and in many cases are over-powered. many of the bases are designed so you can just snipe away at the enemy generator with your tank and destroy it without worry of being engaged by the defenders. Running over your own teammates results in a suicide for them, and no penalty for yourself- great if you just want to troll your own team, as is often the case. What this game direly needs is level segregation of some form- whether it's designated levels for zones where as you out level the zone you do less damage, or you cannot respawn into a zone you are out leveled for, something needs to give a new player some fudge-factor to learn how the game works besides dropping you straight into a fight that you are grossly under leveled for.

I completely agree with everything he said, it's like he was reading my mind.

Uninstalled after 2 hours of playing and I was even with my brother which should have helped the overall fun factor.
>overrated
>walking simulator
>friendly fire
>poor balance
>no level separation…Expand

...seriously just an "OK" game. Mostly a place for spam players and campers. Playing as a team or solo, you feel useless. If you're a fan of Black Ops, Modern Warfare, or the old Counter-Strike, this isn't the game for you.

This game is far from being completed and will likely be added to for years. What they have already is amazing, and they are constantly patching and adding more stuff. If you are not working with a group, the game is not the same honestly. If you have a full platoon of 48 people all working together? Oh my god the feeling is unmatched. The feeling of turning the tide of a major battleThis game is far from being completed and will likely be added to for years. What they have already is amazing, and they are constantly patching and adding more stuff. If you are not working with a group, the game is not the same honestly. If you have a full platoon of 48 people all working together? Oh my god the feeling is unmatched. The feeling of turning the tide of a major battle involving hundreds of players? It is amazing! Orders are given and things get done and it is one of the most rewarding feelings I have ever had in any game ever. The game still needs a ton of work, but it is getting better daily. It is also free to play so really, there is no reason not to try it.…Expand

Often a 1v1 close encounter will result in whoever gets a head-shot or who is a Vanu. If you use aim-down sights, your strafing ability is wrecked (even with the guns which only cut it by 50%), if you use hip fire you'll probably be lucky to get a head-shot which gives you an annoying choice where one is rarely better than the other and you regret not doing it the other way. No snipingOften a 1v1 close encounter will result in whoever gets a head-shot or who is a Vanu. If you use aim-down sights, your strafing ability is wrecked (even with the guns which only cut it by 50%), if you use hip fire you'll probably be lucky to get a head-shot which gives you an annoying choice where one is rarely better than the other and you regret not doing it the other way. No sniping would encourage more infantry since sniping is the reason why you wouldn't play infantry at all. No headshots and you could keep sniping because then you couldn't pin down any inferior number of infantry. Knifing is awesome though. This game is totally the opposite of traditional FPS and it's such a shame because without all the modern features and mechanics it would be amazing. Sometimes it's obvious you should play World of Tanks/Planes when you actually want to play infantry other than Infiltrator. Vehicle and air play is really good but if you're not into it, you'll really tire of waiting to invade the enemy base only to find they give up really fast and you sit around for 3-10 minutes for capture because you cannot move on to take the next base. Stealth-killing is risky but it doesn't really suit this game since it is very anti-rush and there should be power in numbers and should not reward luck. Cloak is easy to spot and triggering it on/off is very audible. Any class can be stealthy but with a lot of open areas and places to snipe, sometimes the game becomes incredibly frustrating. Engineers have to be vulnerable to repair vehicles which doesn't really make sense when you're using a damn gun to repair stuff, a lot of fights are just explosives blowing up everything and driving back to try and push towards the enemy base. The choice of armors is pretty much either reduced bullet damage or reduced explosive damage, but even with flak armor, you can get 1 shot by rockets fired by infantry (it's still useful though (just not much)). Nanoweave is a necessity if you're interested in close/mid-range infantry combat. Often a nade/c4 or air fire will likely result in you being useless anyway. Sadly the game is not very well optimized and has some crash problems. Then there's the issue where you cannot pre-load areas you are going to deploy to which means less action! Instant action sometimes doesn't work and honestly there is zero sense to this feature since drop podding into an enemy base and pod-crashing air units is very unfair. By the way I can fly a plane into another one and mine will blow up while the other continues on it's merry way with no damage taken. Instant action is for solo players and PS2 is NOT for solo gamers. Killing people...it's fun but not rewarding in the context of credits...objectives are the most important thing which I feel is a bit silly since taking over bases with a big group is rarely fun (usually the numbers are heavily one-sided). PS2 had potential but got some of the fundamentals wrong. Smaller worlds with less paths to go through would result in more intense battles and less running around. More corridors would encourage confrontation rather than waiting for more players and limit the usefulness of vehicles. Instead it's scrap battles everywhere and a platoon of players who stomp one place, while one of your platoons stomps some other place which is absolutely boring, most of the problem is that there are THREE worlds and when you're losing in one world, you go to another world. I don't know why, but this is a fatal flaw in PS2, I've seen it ruin other games.…Expand

It is awesome to play and extremely addictive. It's got a very long learning curve but most people are willing to give out tips as there's no tutorial. Just stick with it, always find cover and expect to die a lot for a time. The games a little shallow if you have not got a mic but the teamwork and banter can be fantastic if you do have one. It's easy to make friends and I now play withIt is awesome to play and extremely addictive. It's got a very long learning curve but most people are willing to give out tips as there's no tutorial. Just stick with it, always find cover and expect to die a lot for a time. The games a little shallow if you have not got a mic but the teamwork and banter can be fantastic if you do have one. It's easy to make friends and I now play with regulars everyday. Joining an outfit and befriending a few select veterans really helps to keep the game fresh and you'll soon learn who the best platoon and squad leaders are within your chosen faction on your server. The sheer scale of the battles can be brilliant and being in a squad is essential to survival and capping territory. The game has got quite a few issues which will hopefully be addressed as it is still early days. There are lots of little bugs such as being killed by a turret when you finish repairing it and hackers sometimes ruin things etc etc but its still a great experience. My game lags like crazy when the scale of battle gets too large so having a decent setup helps. I'm worried that the novelty will ware off soon as there isnt any real sense of accomplishment in the grand scale of things, all you gain is XP and certs and leveling up doesnt really mean anything. Hopefully they will make the game more rewarding in the furture and give people reason to stick with it. As a game that is free it is pretty epic and a must try for anyone interetsed in team work and large scale battles. TR forever…Expand

Oh Planetside 2. How you fail to grasp the concept on what "Fun" is. Did your community trick around in the game engine and found some cool looking glitch that had no chance of being used practically whatsoever? Ban & Remove it.

Did your veteran fans have the audacity to contact you in order to perhaps get on an unannounced & not planned double SC weekend at Saturday 00:01 as theyOh Planetside 2. How you fail to grasp the concept on what "Fun" is. Did your community trick around in the game engine and found some cool looking glitch that had no chance of being used practically whatsoever? Ban & Remove it.

Did your veteran fans have the audacity to contact you in order to perhaps get on an unannounced & not planned double SC weekend at Saturday 00:01 as they bought SC at regular value at Friday, 23:59? Tell em to go f*ck off.

Then again, people should have known better than to spend valuable money on people that have no idea on how to run a business, and even less so, develop a video-game. As of today with only 3,000 players left from 10,000-30,000, Planetside 2 and Sony Online Entertainment are the leading prime-examples on how to not run a business.…Expand

Planetside 2 is an FPS MMO. And right from the get-go the player is thrown into a conflict on a huge map that is divided up in sectors. Each sector offers the team he plays for (there are three teams to choose from, each with a different look) an advantage and the player is tasked, along with everyone else to either hold or capture a sector with the use of six different play-able classesPlanetside 2 is an FPS MMO. And right from the get-go the player is thrown into a conflict on a huge map that is divided up in sectors. Each sector offers the team he plays for (there are three teams to choose from, each with a different look) an advantage and the player is tasked, along with everyone else to either hold or capture a sector with the use of six different play-able classes and several vehicles that can be spawned. There is an item store but it seems that so far, all of the items can be unlocked by simply playing the game. I've never played anything like this before but I could best describe it as Battlefield 2142 meets APB: Reloaded and not just because they're both exciting games but also because they're rather buggy. Planetside 2 can be horribly laggy, flickering screens will force you to quit the game and start it up again and you'll find other people rubberbanding all over the place . The launch wasn't exactly easy either but Sony fixed the problem and it seems like EU players can play now. There are plenty of people on-line and there is more teamwork going on than I would have expected from a free MMO despite people still learning the ropes. This is one of the few times that I genuinly like a free-to-play game and I think it might have a future if they get to work on the performance issues and graphical glitches. If you're an FPS fan and love large scale combat and vehicles, you'll want to check out PlanetSide 2. Just don't expect a tutorial or storyline. The former doesn't exist and the latter is restricted to an extremely brief story told after you create a new character. As I have quit playing the game due to its highly repetitive nature, dwindling server populations (rendering certain continents completely unplayable) and Sony's lack of response to these issues I have lowered the score to 5 (from 8). Planetside 2 was a good idea but it was poorly executed. All that awaits now are server mergers and eventually, cancellation.…Expand

I have been playing this game since launch and it has gotten much better since then! I have increased my score for the game because the devs have added so much to it since launch and because they continue to add new content every week.

Planetside 2 falls short of Planetside 1 in about every category, but it's still a lot of fun and the best recent shooter out there. Be advised it's poorly optimized at the moment with some netcode issues, but hopefully when those are ironed out it will be fun for everyone.

Their customer service team is responsive and fast. Haven't run into any obvious hackers yet.

It keeps getting better and better with every patch ! PLEASE NOTE that most negative reviews are OUTDATED since the game has changed massively over the last two years. A lot of problems are much smaller or aren't there any more !
Only in this game battles with literally hundreds of people, on foot or in land/air vehicles.
The graphics are really good too especially if you consider thisIt keeps getting better and better with every patch ! PLEASE NOTE that most negative reviews are OUTDATED since the game has changed massively over the last two years. A lot of problems are much smaller or aren't there any more !
Only in this game battles with literally hundreds of people, on foot or in land/air vehicles.
The graphics are really good too especially if you consider this game's grand scale.
With 5 different classess and 6 vehicles, and 4 continent to fight for it's hard to be bored.
It has its share of problems though: sometimes the battles are just not going good for your faction and it's hard to find a satysfying one. Balance of the factions is somewhat lackluster often leading to one factin dominating the others on a specific server.
Most people claim this game has a steep learning curve, which is probably true, it took me quite a while to grasp the basics. Yes, there are tutorials but you may need to force yourself at first or watch youtube videos with guides.
There is no other game like it and I strongly recommend it to shooter fans. The game heavily supports playing in a squad, but I usually lone wolf and it's really fun, nothing more satisfying than pulling a Rambo-like feat as a heavy assault or sneak behind enemy lines and sabotage the enemy base with the infiltrator. 8/10…Expand

Terrible performance issues i wont ever go near this game again.
Tested it out and it runs appaling how on earth can you expect people to play this garbage it runs like a slide show on high end gear.
What mess cya

Epic. It's a word that is thrown around quite a bit, but it perfectly describes what Planetside is. Many other games have "epic' scripted events to make you feel like you are part of something massive. In Planetside 2, those events happen organically and often and with real players. The massive scope of this game is literally not found in any other fps game. While you will need a top ofEpic. It's a word that is thrown around quite a bit, but it perfectly describes what Planetside is. Many other games have "epic' scripted events to make you feel like you are part of something massive. In Planetside 2, those events happen organically and often and with real players. The massive scope of this game is literally not found in any other fps game. While you will need a top of the line computer to get the most out of this game, it is still very playable on my computer with is 3 years old (some parts are even older). To me, this means the game will age well and still look great years from now.

The game is certainly free2play but definitely not pay2win. I have not dropped a single penny into the game and I have never felt at a disadvantag. Everything that is not cosmetic can be purchased using in-game experience. You never have to spend a penny to get any weapon or attachment that a paying player can have.

While the game is certainly more fun playing in groups, I've had a great time just exploring the game by myself. However, the community is very open and friendly so joining an outfit is easy and rewarding.

I have already had experiences in this game that I have never had before in any other game, and there is still so much left for me to explore. This is a game I've been waiting my whole life for, and I can see myself playing this game for years to come.…Expand

Planetside 2 is a genuinely enjoyable experience that combines the elements of a number of FPS games that I prefer. I enjoyed battlefield 1942 the first time I played it, primarily because I enjoyed the "epic feeling" that the game had to it; Planetside 2 simply brings this to a whole new level. It's a massive game, and the combat's scale is unrivaled. The factions are balanced, andPlanetside 2 is a genuinely enjoyable experience that combines the elements of a number of FPS games that I prefer. I enjoyed battlefield 1942 the first time I played it, primarily because I enjoyed the "epic feeling" that the game had to it; Planetside 2 simply brings this to a whole new level. It's a massive game, and the combat's scale is unrivaled. The factions are balanced, and easily distinct with their own unique play-style. The combat itself is really good, easily comparable with the best FPS's on the market to date.…Expand

Game is incredible. Ever battle is massive and scales hundreds of players. People giving it low scores have crappy computer or internet. This is the game of the future and requires a decent computer. I have laptop with nividia gforce 200m series graphics card and 6Gs of ram at college and this game runs fine. If you want an awesome game that blows battlefield out of the water ,and makesGame is incredible. Ever battle is massive and scales hundreds of players. People giving it low scores have crappy computer or internet. This is the game of the future and requires a decent computer. I have laptop with nividia gforce 200m series graphics card and 6Gs of ram at college and this game runs fine. If you want an awesome game that blows battlefield out of the water ,and makes call of duty look sad...THIS IS FOR YOU…Expand

It's basically Halo + Battlefield 3 on a map that is about 75 km^2. Well balanced, and lots of fun with a good amount of character customization. Plus, it is completely free. If you choose to pay anything, the items you can buy are entirely side-grades and flair, and do not make you a better player. A level 10 that pays will be on equal footing with a level 10 that doesn't pay (notIt's basically Halo + Battlefield 3 on a map that is about 75 km^2. Well balanced, and lots of fun with a good amount of character customization. Plus, it is completely free. If you choose to pay anything, the items you can buy are entirely side-grades and flair, and do not make you a better player. A level 10 that pays will be on equal footing with a level 10 that doesn't pay (not that character level matters too much anyway, a max level character might be ~20% "better" than a level 1 because they can do minor things like add grips to their guns, carry more ammo and repair things quicker). My one complaint would me a lack of a meta-game, as you never get to a point where you "win". You can take over a continent for a brief period of time, but there is never a screen that says "round over, you win!". Only a permanent game over territory control. Capturing a base after a several hour assault still feels good though :P…Expand

Planetside2 is the epitome of modern FPS games. It belong to the MMO scene and brings a different approach to warfare. Forget about 16,32 or 64 battles. In PS2 2000 players can fight in the same continent creating some very huge and epic battles.
But the most important thing is that the developers listen the community and bring improvements in regular basis. I haven't seen any other gamePlanetside2 is the epitome of modern FPS games. It belong to the MMO scene and brings a different approach to warfare. Forget about 16,32 or 64 battles. In PS2 2000 players can fight in the same continent creating some very huge and epic battles.
But the most important thing is that the developers listen the community and bring improvements in regular basis. I haven't seen any other game where the development team participate in the forums and discuss several issues with players. The game is Free to Play so it is very easy to try it and play without giving a dime. It needs some focus in the beginning because of its scale but soon you will understand how to play.…Expand

Its a great game and I would recommend it to any of my friends looking for a good fps to play.

The game has its fair share of bugs and problems but most should be fixed soon seeing as the game hasn't even been out for a month yet. Once you get started in the game and find a good outfit you'll find yourself sinking hours and hours of time into this game.

Not the best performance but iam sure they fix it later. The graphic is ok the landscape is acceptable. After 10h of playing Planetside 2 its not a game i can play every day. Its a Battlefield 3 in the future with more players, up 2000 players on one map. There is a great reward-system so you get much thinks to unlock. And its also Free to Play. Just test this game its worth.

Having never played PlanetSide, but having heard lots about it, I was quite intrigued to try PlanetSide 2. The whole idea of scale and options within a FREE game seem very appealing to me. I knew what i was getting in for though. It's a pay to pwn game, but not as much as others in its class and I don't hold that against it. For first time players like me, the first few games are a littleHaving never played PlanetSide, but having heard lots about it, I was quite intrigued to try PlanetSide 2. The whole idea of scale and options within a FREE game seem very appealing to me. I knew what i was getting in for though. It's a pay to pwn game, but not as much as others in its class and I don't hold that against it. For first time players like me, the first few games are a little daunting - once you get over the learning curve and figure out whats actually going on - The game opens up and consumes the minutes, hours, days of your life and replaces them with some sort of satisfaction. The game is fast paced, its tactical, it has all of the elements of squad based FPS you would expect but at the same time adds more, the scale is unbelievable and theres a very cool feeling that washes over you as you convoy towards an enemy's base with 50 tanks and 100 troops around you.. Graphics: - Are okay, they obviously had to make some compromises to manage the scale, it's not a huge let down though. I play on a laptop (high spec gaming laptop) and it handles the settings on max without any problems. A fun game, worth picking up and enjoying!…Expand

Epic battles in an epic environment, with day and night cycle, feels like an MMO since there are no "rounds", its a persistent world in war. It gives you the choice to engage in big battles, small battles, or maybe camp in the nearby mountains sniping from a far? You choose. Best Battlefield I ever played.

Loads of potential crippled by the engines inability to address multi core CPU's, hyper-threading or use more than 50% of your GPU. DirectX 9.................

This game has so much potential that gets gimped at every turn because of the poor choice of engine development. As it sits currently you will be netting about 30 fps in a firefight on two GTX780's in SLI and a I7 overclocked toLoads of potential crippled by the engines inability to address multi core CPU's, hyper-threading or use more than 50% of your GPU. DirectX 9.................

This game has so much potential that gets gimped at every turn because of the poor choice of engine development. As it sits currently you will be netting about 30 fps in a firefight on two GTX780's in SLI and a I7 overclocked to 5 GHZ. The total lack of any game optimization, it's inability to properly address multui core CPU's or perform hyper-threading, or take advantage of multi GPU setups really hinder the games play-ability and overall enjoyment level.

The game is solid, the devs are working tirelessly on balance issues but the core looming issue has gone unaddressed for so long i now have to believe it is simply technologically impossible for this game to ever play at acceptable fluid frame rates for a modern day gamer. It really really puts a sour taste in most gamers mouths that can become too large of a pill to swallow.

If you value your frame rate, have a 120 hz monitor or own high end hardware this game is not for you, you wont last long before the frustration sends you packing back to your old friend because 30 FPS were simply to painful to bear with for more than a few hours.…Expand

I've never seen a game so graphically promising but play like ass. Right off the get-go, the game tries persuading me to use its instant action command only to drop me right into some enemy's sights conveniently. From thereon, it's trying to adapt to the guerrilla warfare tactics that are dictated by the huge environment and class divisions. And yet, no matter what I tried to kill someoneI've never seen a game so graphically promising but play like ass. Right off the get-go, the game tries persuading me to use its instant action command only to drop me right into some enemy's sights conveniently. From thereon, it's trying to adapt to the guerrilla warfare tactics that are dictated by the huge environment and class divisions. And yet, no matter what I tried to kill someone it either resulted in being lucky and getting a kill after shooting them an extremely unnecessary amount of times... they got away, or they would just turn around and shoot me in very little shots.

Seeing as how this game is P2W- I mean F2P, advantages can and do get bought to allow players to become stronger. When you make the game so headshotting someone a ridiculous amount of times doesn't even put them in danger of death but they can easily blast you because they've got everything available, you've completely alienated your new players.

I highly doubt that this is a learning curve thing either as I've been able to jump into other FPS games without issue. Battlefield probably being my biggest leap which this game takes a lot of elements from... and that comes nowhere close to the amount of **** this game brings.…Expand

I've played this game since beta... even played planetside 1 which I enjoyed(the base fights were awesome!). This game is never fun... here are some reasons:

1) you spend 99% of the time bored, running in vast empty lands just to get to a fight. running 20 mins to get to a 5 min fight is not my idea of "epic".
2) Almost all spawns are dependant on other players deciding where toI've played this game since beta... even played planetside 1 which I enjoyed(the base fights were awesome!). This game is never fun... here are some reasons:

1) you spend 99% of the time bored, running in vast empty lands just to get to a fight. running 20 mins to get to a 5 min fight is not my idea of "epic".

2) Almost all spawns are dependant on other players deciding where to deploy. So your left with extremely fustrating options...(see my previous point)

3) Game is 100% pay to win/avoid grinding. 7.50$ to buy each gun... that's a ripoff and it ruins the gaming experience. So unless your spending 300$, you are essentially not enjoying the full experience of this game.

4) The bases are extremely bland and boring. It amounts to nothing but a copy paste of the same pixels

5) Everyone is forced to squad/platoon together and this is not fine when your gaming revolves spending your time camping empty bases with no enemy's to kill "just because" it's the team objective. YOU HAVE NO OPTIONS, this is the gameplay, follow the zerg or DO NOTHING.

6. The bases and fights are incredibly bland. Nothing special about them... there's no epic element about the MMO aspect.... after 2-3 hours you'll realise the first 10 mins is exactly like your 50th hour.

7. Everyone wants to play a tank or vehicle class. The problem is it only takes 1 or 2 of these to paralyze 50+ infantry. Why is this bad? Basically, this game has NO INFANTRY battles... almost all fights are just zergfests between Vehicles killing each other. You never actually duel other "soldiers".

I keep reinstalling the game, reminding myself how stupid of an idea it was.

Planetside 2 is a game that has unbelievable polish for what is a free game. while i admit that it has lag issues and bugs there are moments in this game that are absolutely spectacular. Plus its FREE so go play it for yourself

I need to start this review informing you that I HATE free to play games.

But, this is the only one other than league of legends that I find somewhat fair in their model. - My only gripe about this game is when they release a new weapon.. they make it super awesome so everyone buys it.. then after a week and the sales start to slow down.. NERF! .. ask anyone when the shotgun first cameI need to start this review informing you that I HATE free to play games.

But, this is the only one other than league of legends that I find somewhat fair in their model. - My only gripe about this game is when they release a new weapon.. they make it super awesome so everyone buys it.. then after a week and the sales start to slow down.. NERF! .. ask anyone when the shotgun first came out compared to now.. or the phoenix rocket launcher.

For the game play, 10/10... Love it!

Battles are legendary! The sheer size and scale of the armies that siege your fortress or bio-lab are amazing!

Guns are pretty balanced and each faction has unique art styles and few play styles that differentiate them for the others.

I like the pace of combat way more than COD and battlefield and the system of how you can upgrade your gear is a nice touch.

Purely idiotic game design. As you spawn into the game, you have no idea what you are doing. Distinguishing enemies from friendlies is a pain in the ass (some classes had similar body colours as the enemy team). And the best thing ever your weapons get if you accidentally shoot some idiot on your team. The only reason this cesspool of a game exists is because it is "free".

When I first started playing this game I actually enjoyed it. However, I started quite late and after a while I started to find this one of the most frustrating and unfair first person shooters I have ever played. New players are thrown into a battle as a level 1 and are mostly against lever 20s, not to mention the countless level 40s and even level 70s. They have much better weapons thanWhen I first started playing this game I actually enjoyed it. However, I started quite late and after a while I started to find this one of the most frustrating and unfair first person shooters I have ever played. New players are thrown into a battle as a level 1 and are mostly against lever 20s, not to mention the countless level 40s and even level 70s. They have much better weapons than you and even if you get the first shot you can almost bet your life that if they start shooting back its over. They also have better armour. The snipers in this game are ridiculous, yielding very powerful semi-automatics at a higher level. Eventually I found myself aiming to get one kill for every spawn in a battle because it was inevitable that either I will get shot to pieces by an experienced player or picked off instantly by a sniper.

Even if you're good at first person shooters don't expect that you will do just as well in this game. I guarantee that when you experience your first battle you'll be instantly killed with a few shots from a more experienced player with a much better gun than you. I stopped playing after I realised I was only re-spawning to be killed again. This game is unfair, unrewarding, frustrating and simply not fun. As other people have said, it's just a complete mess.…Expand

Complete turn off for new users in it's current state. I'm not a fan of lame tutorials, but the very minimum one needs for a new game is to check the controls and get some orientation. Every time I spawned and tried to do anything meaningful, I was killed by assorted heavy machinery within seconds. It also felt pretty random compared to PS1 HE fire from all directions don't leave theComplete turn off for new users in it's current state. I'm not a fan of lame tutorials, but the very minimum one needs for a new game is to check the controls and get some orientation. Every time I spawned and tried to do anything meaningful, I was killed by assorted heavy machinery within seconds. It also felt pretty random compared to PS1 HE fire from all directions don't leave the grunt many choices, especially not one whose experience spans seconds.

Getting rid of certs and allowing instant class switching almost makes it seem like PS2 was intended to be more of an Unreal Tournament than the strategic shooter the first game was.

Let me preface this review by saying that I've been playing this game since the beta stage.
The game is amusing, but highly overrated. It's fun for a bit and then you realize that you've accomplished absolutely nothing and you've been killed every 30 seconds by someone who has everything upgraded for their character. Even when you manage to take an entire section of the map you rarelyLet me preface this review by saying that I've been playing this game since the beta stage.
The game is amusing, but highly overrated. It's fun for a bit and then you realize that you've accomplished absolutely nothing and you've been killed every 30 seconds by someone who has everything upgraded for their character. Even when you manage to take an entire section of the map you rarely have a sense of achievement.
The maps are huge and pretty, but spawn points are obnoxiously far away which results in lots of time spent traveling from place to place. God-forbid anyone kill you along the way because then you'll have to start over.
Weapons are insanely imabalanced, the Vanu's guns are about as strong as marshmallow shooters compared to the other two factions' weapons. Anyone who can gain a few points (which isn't hard at all) can then get a MAX suit or a tank, which are super overpowered for their prices. It varies depending on the time and server, but the New Conglomerate usually have way more people playing at once than the other two factions do.
The game shows absolutely no mercy towards new players, you're thrown in with everyone else on the server and usually end up with the short end of the stick in every fight. There is no place for newer, underequipped players to go and work their way up to play with the higher leveled players. Newbies are dropped in the middle with everyone else.PS2 doesn't count running someone over as a teamkill, so trolls will often do that resulting in a "suicide" for you which has a longer respawn counter than usual.
Lastly, the game is pretty but poorly optimized at the moment.; very buggy with its fair share of glitches. I've got a decent gaming rig: quad core CPU 3.4Ghz, 8GB RAM, & Geforce GTX 550Ti and I can't play the game smoothly unless everything is off or on low with a reduced render distance and 0% render quality.

Tl;dr Game is overrated, surprisingly imbalanced, NC are the zerg, noobs are doomed, glitches ahoy!…Expand

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
YES!!! I was in a battle at the crown with a grand total of 500+ people!(I am Vanu, and we only had ~50 people there, and the graph showed we were 10% of the people there. Btw, you need a really good computer to play. I use a amd fx 8350 and a gtx 760. I play ultra settings, but the LAG when you have hundreds of people. A** kicking fun when you just see chaos XD) (Btw, smoke grenades and emp grenades=TROLOLOL in these situations...you mess up hundreds of elmos and smurfs(TR and NC)…Expand

Planetside 2 has this huge disparity between people just starting out and those that have a lot of time put in. Unless you're spending really money, don't expect to be able to go head to head with anyone in the first couple months.

The gameplay is fun but the game has horrendous balance, most people in close up firefights end up going heavy more than half the time

Keeping the original game's thoughts in mind, I feel they have completely disregarded the fan base in which brought this game into being. I will not be spending the dozens of hours in which I did during the original PlanetSide, just my opinion.

Bad attempt to make awesome multiplayer. First this game have one of uglier graphics this year, but this is not crucial for multiplayer game anyways. But, game fail in all other aspects. Glitchy, bad spawn points ruining the action, bad shooting are only few of bad thins this game bring to the table. Only good thing is free to play because if they charge for this would be really cheating.

The concept of this game blew me away, I couldn't imagine such a great idea! The Graphics are so impressive, the World is so big and there are so many players. The gameplay is great aswell, it's similiar to a lot of other games out there but when that gameplay meets that big scale, then it just... Dies, litteraly dies. I hate running for 5 to 10 minutes just to get killed when I even getThe concept of this game blew me away, I couldn't imagine such a great idea! The Graphics are so impressive, the World is so big and there are so many players. The gameplay is great aswell, it's similiar to a lot of other games out there but when that gameplay meets that big scale, then it just... Dies, litteraly dies. I hate running for 5 to 10 minutes just to get killed when I even get to the fight. The big World and the gameplay doesn't really fit, if you love to fight. Oh, and about those fights, then the classes you can play are so unbalanced, it's crazy. I know they all got some pros and cons which is good, but it isn't balanced enough. The conclusion: It's a game with great potential, putting all those great aspects together, but not all those great Things fit together, which is sad, when I really want to love the game.…Expand

(Forewarning; I apologize for the inevitable slaughter of my format by Metacritic, huge walls of text are the only option :c) The PROS:

+The game has the largest battles to be found in any game, ever. Barring very special cases in certain strategy games (Namely, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance and Total War) you will never see larger battles. It simply dwarves all contemporary games(Forewarning; I apologize for the inevitable slaughter of my format by Metacritic, huge walls of text are the only option :c) The PROS:

+The game has the largest battles to be found in any game, ever. Barring very special cases in certain strategy games (Namely, Supreme Commander: Forged Alliance and Total War) you will never see larger battles. It simply dwarves all contemporary games in sheer scale.

+Many of the mechanics from the original game (PlanetSide) have been completely revamped and/or replaced. It is no longer a chore to play. In fact, the gameplay is VASTLY improved, featuring full hitboxes, well-defined class roles and strategic thought simply not present before. Quite simply, its a blast

+The futuristic setting is very interesting visually and audibly. The lighting, draw distances, shadows and SFX are stunning. I especially enjoy when you fight at night, as it is one of the only modern games where the dark of night is... dark. I have a feeling you will enjoy looking at the immense star and moonscapes in awe, they're spectacular.

+ The game is Free to Play! In case you didn't know, "F2P" means "Free to Play"; Huzzuah! + There are three teams per server, as opposed to the regular two-sided fights that are the norm. This introduces an interesting dynamic with three-sided battles. Extremely fun.

+ While the factions share several things in common, notably certain vehicles and the classes, they each have a unique set of strengths and weaknesses that give you incentive to play as all three. While the lore is not particularly strong (This is an MMO after all), I suspect you will choose your first faction based on their backstory. I prefer the Vanu, being a transhumanist scum in real life.

+As goes naturally with the large player counts, the maps are enormous; expect to travel in various gunships and APC's more than on foot when trying to get from place-to-place.

The CONS:

- My primary concern with the game is the system requirements; you will require a very powerful rig to run the game at a level of 30 FPS or higher. Lower-end computers or older ones will have some problems, most notably in the larger battles. I had no problems with this, as I very recently constructed my own computer with high-end parts, but for the majority of people performance will be a factor.

- There are quite a few bugs and glitches int he game as-is; friendly tanks running you over push you into geometry, muzzle flash sometimes continues even when not firing,You spawn from a "slanted" perspective... You know, pretty typical stuff.

- Game-enders; Every now and then, you will have a CATASTROPHIC crash that may require you to disable/reset your router and modem, or at least restart your computer. These are very infrequent (I've had it happen once) but keep this in mind.

-There are some balancing issues, most relating to the MAX quasi-class/mech and to the power of air vehicles/Anti-Air weaponry.

- The "Certification" system in the game allows you to purchase weapons and other gear/perks with in-game experience. You "buy" them with things called "Certs" (Short for certifications) which are earned in gameplay for doing essentially everything. The number of Certs you need to buy some things (Notably weapons) is huge, and you earn them very slowly. I place huge emphasis on "slowly" . You can, optionally, circumvent this problem by directly buying things with real money through microtransactions, or buying a $15/month subscription (Which isn't mandatory in any way!) to increase the rate at which you earn things.

- I mentioned the lighting effects, particle effects and such earlier? Those are great, but the actual TEXTURES in the game are not particularly good, on-par with the industry standard five years ago. This is for the sake of game performance, a necessary evil, but it is still a definite weakness.

-Tutorials are very weak, you are simply thrust into the game for lack of a better term. I suggest watching youtube videos to get a grasp of the game before you play

CONCLUSION:

PlanetSide 2 is FILLED with great times to be had if you have a decent computer, all for the low, low price of $0. Keep in mind the game is somewhat hindered graphically and in terms of performance by the large player counts and huge maps, but simultaneously remember the good vastly outweighs the bad!

It gets an 8/10 - The game is superb with several minor problems and one somewhat big one. I expect the developers will support the game for years to come, so I will likely amend my score to 9/10 in the future as the performance is boosted and the bigs patched. You have nothing to lose by downloading it, just do it!…Expand

I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Anyone who rated this below a seven simply didn't bother to put the time into it. It badly needs a tutorial, which is why this didn't hit a perfect ten, but for chrissakes, PLAY a game before you damn it. Besides, there are tutorial vids that it shoves in your face in the gorram launcher but hell, I've been playing since before those, and it onlyI'm going to keep this short and sweet. Anyone who rated this below a seven simply didn't bother to put the time into it. It badly needs a tutorial, which is why this didn't hit a perfect ten, but for chrissakes, PLAY a game before you damn it. Besides, there are tutorial vids that it shoves in your face in the gorram launcher but hell, I've been playing since before those, and it only took me about a half hour to figure everything out. Stop pissing yourselves and wrecking the score on an awesome game. Out.…Expand

What are the good things? Well, no one buys their way in like in most F2Ps, and the class system is pretty good. The rest is sketchy at best. It is I guess supposed to be a little like Battlefield where you join a squad to complete an objective, but that objective never works. Your squad mostly attacks the tanks (which can spawn way too cheaply) and die, go the wrong way and die or justWhat are the good things? Well, no one buys their way in like in most F2Ps, and the class system is pretty good. The rest is sketchy at best. It is I guess supposed to be a little like Battlefield where you join a squad to complete an objective, but that objective never works. Your squad mostly attacks the tanks (which can spawn way too cheaply) and die, go the wrong way and die or just suck and die. The reason? There is way too much going on for the game's own good. I get they were trying to stay away from the conventional FPS where one man wins a war, but when 2500 players from three teams are fighting all the battles are are air strikes and kamikazes and nothing ever gets done. Picture MW with unlimited Harrier Strikes. The concept of huge scale war makes sense, but doing it in badly organized squads doesn't work. And don't try doing anything by yourself, getting nice weapons or rewards for anything is impossible.…Expand

Unoptimized beta. Bugs.
Don't get me wrong, every software has bugs but how can you release a game in beta stage? I sank into the ground 3 times for less than 1 hour. Just an example of what kind of bugs you will come across.
I like the idea of the game I'm looking forward to play it but please, Sony... Before you release a game make sure doesn't have at least trivial bugs.

The core gameplay is fun, albeit with a few annoyances. The epic scale with smooth gameplay is very impressive. The game is addicting and causes time to fly by.

Pros: Massive scale, very fun, extremely team oriented. VOIP communication is critical for tactical gameplay. Play the way you want. Support classes are totally viable. Air combat is amazingly fun.
Cons: The business model.The core gameplay is fun, albeit with a few annoyances. The epic scale with smooth gameplay is very impressive. The game is addicting and causes time to fly by.

Pros: Massive scale, very fun, extremely team oriented. VOIP communication is critical for tactical gameplay. Play the way you want. Support classes are totally viable. Air combat is amazingly fun.

Cons: The business model. Free to play, but takes 6 months at 25 hours a week to max just one infantry and one vehicle. Subscribers who have bought a few weapons and boosts can do that in 3 weeks. Costs maybe $50 + $15 a month. Simply put, infrequent free players are going to be at a disadvantage. The game is definitely designed to sucker people into buying station cash. I have already spent $180 on the game and have a moderate advantage over new players, but hopefully that advantage will fade after 6 months or so.

The graphics do not appear to be state of the art because the ultra setting was removed from the game at the very end of beta due to stability issues. The game is not multithreaded, which is a big problem for people with slower CPUs or even high end AMD CPUs. i5 and i7 CPUs are required to have satisfactory framerates on high settings. CPU clock speed directly affects framerates (GPU not so much), so overclockers benefit a lot.

The annoyances to which I was refering are the invulnerable shield spawn locations where stalemate battles may continue for often 30 minutes at a time. I find these annoying and they are the epitome of spawning camping. You can literally die 20 times in 5 minutes to spawn camping. Some people like this, but I hate it.…Expand

COD fan boys beware! PlanetSide 2 does not focus on holding your hand till you nuke the map, pretending you obtained this with any form of skill involved. Know that this game is challenging, rewarding and hardcore. If you're looking for a AAA massive shooter, this is your only option. Just look at the negative reviews and laugh as the same Modern Warf@gs cry about how the game is not aCOD fan boys beware! PlanetSide 2 does not focus on holding your hand till you nuke the map, pretending you obtained this with any form of skill involved. Know that this game is challenging, rewarding and hardcore. If you're looking for a AAA massive shooter, this is your only option. Just look at the negative reviews and laugh as the same Modern Warf@gs cry about how the game is not a super easy bore-fest. Chest out, chin up, this is war! There is no room for cry babies on the battlefield!…Expand

Awesome looking game, the closest to war you can get on PC. It's amazing to spawn into a fully functioning airbase where there are fighters reloading and air transports loading up troops. The demanding graphics makes sure that the game looks like crap for any setting below high. Gunplay was solid. However game progress is going to be slow if you are not aiming to spend money, if you areAwesome looking game, the closest to war you can get on PC. It's amazing to spawn into a fully functioning airbase where there are fighters reloading and air transports loading up troops. The demanding graphics makes sure that the game looks like crap for any setting below high. Gunplay was solid. However game progress is going to be slow if you are not aiming to spend money, if you are aiming to get for example missle pods on aircraft be prepared to grind.…Expand

I would love to like the game more, but I feel like the more chances I give them to address the issues that bug me the more I am let down.

A few things to note about the game off the bat:
1) Hit detection is client side.
2) The game is HEAVILY CPU bound.
3) It is free to play, and you could theoretically play without paying anything..but that would take ages.
4) Most vehicleI would love to like the game more, but I feel like the more chances I give them to address the issues that bug me the more I am let down.

A few things to note about the game off the bat:

1) Hit detection is client side.
2) The game is HEAVILY CPU bound.
3) It is free to play, and you could theoretically play without paying anything..but that would take ages.
4) Most vehicle weaponry costs 700 station cash (7 USD if you buy it straight up with no station cash sales).
5) There are 3 factions, yet only two of them have any kind of face representing them on the dev team and one of the factions is heavily favored in the dev team.

So going down the list.

1) Hit detection being client side means the game has had droves of cheaters exploit that fact, and they have a hard time dealing with them. They have GMs announce their presence when they login so people can get cheaters dealt with a little faster, but these GMs are sporadic at best. And you have to either remember their name or hope you can scroll back to get it when you run into a cheater. Admittedly the cheating has gotten less rampant, but anytime there's a "special" XP event they come out of the woodwork and the GMs are never to be seen.

On the topic of cheaters, there are players who exploit the game or exploit the spirit of the EULA, get banned for a week or two...but get to keep all of their ill gotten XP with a slap on the wrist. Many of them being pretty well known players. You'll notice a few of them were BR 100 (max level) weeks, maybe months ahead of the everyone else. With whacked out stats that seem impossible as hell on their stats page. SOE claims to not condone this behavior, yet it does nothing to discourage aside from a week long ban.....it's a stupid policy and just asks for people to abuse it.

2) CPU Bound performance, Intel CPUs are the favored here. You want a higher clock speed rather than more cores as this game does not utilize cores very well. And often you will find your performance has dropped each game update. GPU matters, but not as much as it should.

3) & 4)

If you were to buy station cash right now to pay for something in game, it'd be 1 dollar for 100 station cash. They have deals where you can get double or triple station cash meaning 1 dollar would be 2x100 or 3x100. Or deals with places like Walmart where a 15 dollar game card 2000 station cash (20 dollar equiv) and can be doubled or tripled on the special deal events. But their prices normally are 7 dollars for any weapon worth having generally. Aesthetic items go from 100 to 2000 (different colored pistols being the highest priced item atm).

There are membership subscriptions, XP boosters, and many other things to buy for the game. All to speed up your XP gain which means more certs. Which certs are used to upgrade or buy weaponry. You can not buy aesthetic items with certs. It is much more time efficient to buy the weaponry with station cash that you buy on one of the 2x or 3x deals and use the certs to upgrade stuff only.

I will say I am a little under $100 bucks into the game at this point, and I used 2x/3x deals to buy the majority of it and bought a lot of my items in bundles or on daily deals (half off regular price for the day) to stretch out what I got. But on average I'm still paying 2-3 dollars per item.

Now this wouldn't be so incredibly bad IF the items were not constantly screwed around with and nerfed to make room for the "new" guns to come out to get people to buy it for the latest and greatest.

This is probably the primary reason I feel like the game is a sham right now, because they have to sell items to keep the doors open...so instead of making new interesting items, they keep reducing the effectiveness of existing weapons and pumping out similar items with old mechanics but better numbers.

I'd say I easily have 40 dollars worth of weaponry that I don't even bother trying to use because it's pointless to even waste time with it since they've ruined it. I will direct your attention to any HE turret, not only did they lengthen it's reload time to crazy times, but they also lowered it's ability to damage to vehicles and players significantly since the game has been released. You are better off using any other turret than the HE unless you are shooting from super far off at infantry. There are plenty of examples in every weapon type of this game where items were just made completely useless through constant intentional and unintentional nerfs.

5) It won't be a popular subject, but I play TR. I see that VS and NC are represented quite vocally on the dev team, NC especially with Higby. I'll just leave it at that, but I recommend picking NC if you want to be kept happy.

I am reviewing this the day Game Update 10 was released. I am not a happy player or customer with the direction this game is going and how slow they are to address things.…Expand

Three distinct factions, fighting on three huge continents for the supremacy on the planet. Many classes to choose from with a detailed and durable character growth system.

There is no need to spend money to be competitive.
Deep, immense and fast-paced: PlanetSide 2 is a MMOFPS that played in a group offers hours of pure fun.
Unfortunately it still lacks of a solid outfit systemThree distinct factions, fighting on three huge continents for the supremacy on the planet. Many classes to choose from with a detailed and durable character growth system.

There is no need to spend money to be competitive.

Deep, immense and fast-paced: PlanetSide 2 is a MMOFPS that played in a group offers hours of pure fun.

Unfortunately it still lacks of a solid outfit system and it's bad optimized for most personal computers.…Expand

Incredible. A few bugs here and there but will be ironed out carving this game into a 10/10 no doubt. It's quite difficult to get into and is very confusing at the beginning but stick with it and you'll be fighting like the best in no time. The scale of this game really is like nothing you've seen before and the wide variety of roles will keep me playing for a long time.

this game used to be fun but now it's just hitch, hitch, hitch, hitch and it's been like this for around a month now. absolutely gamebreaking and SOE aren't doing anything about it. useless company, useless game.

I wanted to like the game but, sadly, it comes short at a bit of points. 1st up, you will die. A LOT. VERY EASY.
2nd, snipers will kill you. A LOT. VERY EASY. This is very annoying as it seems a lot of players do nothing but sit on roofs and shoot at everything that moves, meaning that as soon as you walk outside of a building, you're a dead man. One of the gazillion enemy snipers will 1I wanted to like the game but, sadly, it comes short at a bit of points. 1st up, you will die. A LOT. VERY EASY.
2nd, snipers will kill you. A LOT. VERY EASY. This is very annoying as it seems a lot of players do nothing but sit on roofs and shoot at everything that moves, meaning that as soon as you walk outside of a building, you're a dead man. One of the gazillion enemy snipers will 1 shot you.

There is hardly any strafing as you won't hit anything without aiming and when you aim you move really slow and can't strafe.

Something else annoying is that you walk quite a lot to get to the fight, provided a sniper doesn't kill you on the way there, and then die in 2 seconds.…Expand

Impossibly huge in scope and scale. I can't believe that it's a free game. The fact that it's an MMO astounds me. Nowhere do I see the slightest gameplay sacrifices because of it, even though the game can support literally thousands of players in a server. This game is a gameplay gem, and a technical masterpiece. There just isn't anything else like it.

Planetside 2 is not your typical CoD or BF shooter game. It has a steep, but satisfying learning curve. It does well on bringing large scale fights to the battlefield. This game is about team play, so don't think you can come in and solo everything. The game does face bugs, balancing, and optimization issues; however, they should be addressed shortly.

I have no clue what people are talking about this is the best f2p game of all time no questions asked. Play it on a decent pc then come back complaining. There are no lag or bugs or whatnot people are complaining about.

i have no problem with the game it runs well, 40 fps in large battles, nice optimization but the f problem is that at times it doesn't work at all, this is worse than WOW phasing, i don't know what development team they have but you FREAKING SHOOT 50 BULLETS AT A PERSON 1 YARD IN FRONT OF YOU AND YOU DO 0 DAMAGE, YEAH THAT'S RIGHT THE FUTURE FPS THEY CAN SHOOT YOU BUT YOU CAN'T!, i pointi have no problem with the game it runs well, 40 fps in large battles, nice optimization but the f problem is that at times it doesn't work at all, this is worse than WOW phasing, i don't know what development team they have but you FREAKING SHOOT 50 BULLETS AT A PERSON 1 YARD IN FRONT OF YOU AND YOU DO 0 DAMAGE, YEAH THAT'S RIGHT THE FUTURE FPS THEY CAN SHOOT YOU BUT YOU CAN'T!, i point this 8 weeks ago and still isn't fixed, all they care is about selling weapons and other but fixing this god damn game doesn't matter to them. THIS GAME IS WORSE THAN WAR Z AT LEAST YOU CAN PLAY THAT…Expand

To be able to enjoy this game completely you must join an outfit. Very frustrating at times but rewarding as well, scale is enormous but the entire war is repetitive and often you will find yourself pushing back the enemies advance only for your efforts to be undone soon after and enter a vicious cycle. Graphics are amazing on good rigs but of course that means lower powered computers canTo be able to enjoy this game completely you must join an outfit. Very frustrating at times but rewarding as well, scale is enormous but the entire war is repetitive and often you will find yourself pushing back the enemies advance only for your efforts to be undone soon after and enter a vicious cycle. Graphics are amazing on good rigs but of course that means lower powered computers can struggle in large battles(i myself have crashed aircraft numerous times after i temporarily freeze during a dogfight). It is a long grind to unlock new weapons and the alternative payment of Station Cash is $1 per 100 SC(often ending up a weapon costing around $7.…Expand

I have written a different review about a year ago but since then the game got faster, better, and much more balanced.
Planetside 2 is now the dream of OC gaming at it's finest hundreds of players on lag free servers, inside a real war run all by people, not AI.
It. Also runs much better, and I am now able to Max the game on my mid range rig (core i5 650@4.5ghz, MSI gtx 760@1280mhz,I have written a different review about a year ago but since then the game got faster, better, and much more balanced.
Planetside 2 is now the dream of OC gaming at it's finest hundreds of players on lag free servers, inside a real war run all by people, not AI.
It. Also runs much better, and I am now able to Max the game on my mid range rig (core i5 650@4.5ghz, MSI gtx 760@1280mhz, 6750mem and 8gb 1333mhz RAM).
It only has 1 downside, and that is you need at least 4gb of RAM.
If you have a fair PC you will be able to enjoy planetside at it's full potential.
Also, I haven't paid a dollar and I never felt underpowered- it's not pay to win.
I highly recommend.…Expand

If you are a new player, go google some tutorials and look on the website before hopping into the action.

Now, Planetside 2 is an AMAZING MMOFPS IF you have the machine to run it, if not, then I feel bad because you are missing the most wonderful modern gaming experience today. Even if playing alone, the breathtaking large-scale battles are extremely enjoyable to participate in, and theIf you are a new player, go google some tutorials and look on the website before hopping into the action.

Now, Planetside 2 is an AMAZING MMOFPS IF you have the machine to run it, if not, then I feel bad because you are missing the most wonderful modern gaming experience today. Even if playing alone, the breathtaking large-scale battles are extremely enjoyable to participate in, and the customization allows you to modify your character to your own playstyle. DOWNLOAD NOW…Expand

Game was not ready for launch there is rendering distance issues, server lag issues, and many other things that the beta testers made them aware of that they ignored. All unlocks bought with cash only stay on 1 character and are non transferable which they do not make clear when you purchase. Devs pretend to listen to the community but do nothing about the complaints so far. They justGame was not ready for launch there is rendering distance issues, server lag issues, and many other things that the beta testers made them aware of that they ignored. All unlocks bought with cash only stay on 1 character and are non transferable which they do not make clear when you purchase. Devs pretend to listen to the community but do nothing about the complaints so far. They just take the giant threads asking for them to change something broken and move them to the back corner of the forums and ignore them. Maybe it will get better and hey its F2P just don't bother spending any real money on it.…Expand

Ok so everyone who has been saying the game is terrible, it's free. Why is everyone complaining? For a free game, the graphics are incredible. The reason there are glitches and bugs is because it JUST came out and the game itself along with the maps are MASSIVE. Yes, of course there is an issue with unbalanced weapons due to people who pay. Why does it matter? Suck it up and enjoy the gameOk so everyone who has been saying the game is terrible, it's free. Why is everyone complaining? For a free game, the graphics are incredible. The reason there are glitches and bugs is because it JUST came out and the game itself along with the maps are MASSIVE. Yes, of course there is an issue with unbalanced weapons due to people who pay. Why does it matter? Suck it up and enjoy the game for what it is. The game is amazing. The battles are huge, usually 100 people per team. The scenery is so well done with the atmosphere of the game that it's just... Beautiful. If played alone, the game is fun. If you play it with a squad of 12 people where there's a very good squad leader (the way I play) the game is unbeatable. Imagine sneaking behind enemy lines with a single Sunderer (the vehicle that allows people to spawn on it) and hiding it under an enemy base two territories over, then taking the massive base with 12 people, while the enemy doesn't even notice you're there until it's too late. Planetside 2 is the definition of teamwork and it's the type of game I and a lot of my friends have been looking for. Sony did an amazing job with this game. Yes, glitches do exist and can get quite annoying. Hit detection isn't the best. There have been times where I shot 50 rounds into someone's chest at point blank and didn't get one hit marker. But my team was there to kill him, so it's ok. Vehicles can be over powered at times, but all you need to do is shoot them with a rocket launcher a few times and it's all good. The Certification system is kind of like most other F2P games, but still a great concept and executed very well. If everyone would just stop complaining about stupid things like the people who pay 15 dollars a month to play to get overpowered things, and maybe look at the gameplay part of it, maybe everyone would enjoy it! That's those people's choice to pay 15 bucks a month to play. You don't have to, so why complain? The game is amazing and it's free, which makes it even better. Yea it's not the best polished game out there, and maybe Sony could've waited a month or two to fix all of the glitches and bugs, but it's FREE. You don't need to pay 60$ for it. I've already put 55 hours into the game and I'm still playing. I love it, and it's just perfect. I over analyze everything. But I seem to just stop caring about any negative things about the game and just enjoy it's pure awesomeness. It's free. Download it and try it. I always say gameplay is completely based off of opinion, which is very true, but this game is just amazing. If you like FPS, you need to at least try this game. Don't give up in the first 5 minutes because it's confusing. Play it for a few hours until you at least have an idea of what you're doing. Remember, ITS FREE.…Expand

Planetside 2 has epic scale. It is great for team play so I would recommend looking for an outfit. It has lots of potential and will grow as a game. There is no pay 2 win, as other have suggested, as all weapons can be purchased with XP. As such, the cash shop allows people to get stuff faster. Graphics are nice for an MMO and they are pro-actively fixing bugs which are only minor.

Planetside 2 is pretty dang good. Here are some pros and cons: PROS - 1) Huge maps with tons of bases, outposts, and facilities to capture. 2) Awesome graphics (I have a high end pc so I can't speak for everyone). 3) Combat on a HUGE scale. I've been in battles with 80+ players. 4) Constant tweaking, patches, and bug fixes. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is constantly improving and fixingPlanetside 2 is pretty dang good. Here are some pros and cons: PROS - 1) Huge maps with tons of bases, outposts, and facilities to capture. 2) Awesome graphics (I have a high end pc so I can't speak for everyone). 3) Combat on a HUGE scale. I've been in battles with 80+ players. 4) Constant tweaking, patches, and bug fixes. Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is constantly improving and fixing imbalances and glitches. And the developers actually listen to and engage with the Planetside 2 community. 5) It's free. The in game shop is only for aesthetic items (there aren't any hats, sorry) or to unlock weapons early, which you can unlock with certification points you get pretty easily in game - which means you never have to spend a cent to get the full experience. 6) The sound effects are awesome. It really feels like a battle. 7) Faction rivalries. Just a small part of the game and community but extremely entertaining. CONS - 1) There are some inbalances between factions, but nothing serious. 2) You will die. A lot. It's an online, first person shooter. There will be many players better than you or with better performing pc's than you. 3) Vehicles, especially aircraft, make mincemeat of infantry. It's hard when you first start out, but as you get more experience, learn how to fight against vehicles (if you're not in one) and learn to play better (and learn that dying only means a 5-10 second respawn) the game becomes much more fun. 4) You will die a lot. 5) It can be frustrating to play if you're not in an organized group like a squad or outfit. There are many squads and outfits out there. Go join one and see why. Way more fun to cooperate and get tactical. 6) You will die a lot. 7) The maps really are HUGE. It can take a while to get place to place unless you hitch a ride or drive yourself somewhere. 8) You will die a lot. Hopefully you're used to that by now. Don't let it bother you. You won't be an elite spec ops pro soldier on day one.

tl;dr

Get it. Play it. It's free. Don't get frustrated by dying a lot.…Expand

Planetside 2 is one of the more enjoyable multiplayer FPS games I have spent time in. Better than Blackops 2 in many respects. The combat is solid and I feel competitive even against veteran players. I do die a lot, but I get killed repeatedly in every FPS game I play. The land mass is huge and I have a lot of fun flying, riding vehicles, or just running between capture points. The gamePlanetside 2 is one of the more enjoyable multiplayer FPS games I have spent time in. Better than Blackops 2 in many respects. The combat is solid and I feel competitive even against veteran players. I do die a lot, but I get killed repeatedly in every FPS game I play. The land mass is huge and I have a lot of fun flying, riding vehicles, or just running between capture points. The game excels when a epic battle occurs. I have had some spectacular battle scenes containing seemingly hundreds of people fighting to capture a point. Of course, there are flaws. You die fast and it can take a significant amount of time to level. However, the negatives are very similar to those in Blackops or Modern Warfare in general (fast death, re-spawns, lack of real objective other than leveling, unlocks can take a lot of patience). The game has a cash shop which is a plus and a minus (you can get just about everything free if you are patient enough). I liked the game enough to purchase in game currency for a few appearance items, and a experience buff. Overall, I think the huge world, vehicles, and large scale multiplayer set the game apart from the competition.…Expand

Completely fantastic and satisfying experience. In FPS games I tend to die a lot. My kill/death ratio is most often near the bottom or smack dab in last place usually. Planetside 2 manages to not make me feel bad about that fact. It's about the team, the push, the rush and every death you experience feels like a few feet gained for your team towards whatever the goal is. Feeling likeCompletely fantastic and satisfying experience. In FPS games I tend to die a lot. My kill/death ratio is most often near the bottom or smack dab in last place usually. Planetside 2 manages to not make me feel bad about that fact. It's about the team, the push, the rush and every death you experience feels like a few feet gained for your team towards whatever the goal is. Feeling like a contributor is what sets this game apart and keeps me sitting there for hours at a time hooting and cheering at the screen when a ship comes tumbling out of the sky in flaming pieces. Great fun.…Expand

Planetside 2 is a really good simulation of a massive multiplayer war that just never ends although there are some things that do need fixing. The first major issue is the lack of a tutorial, it's just a 2-3 minute video and then the game just drops you right in the middle of the fight before you can change any of your settings for try to figure out what's happening. Second issue is thatPlanetside 2 is a really good simulation of a massive multiplayer war that just never ends although there are some things that do need fixing. The first major issue is the lack of a tutorial, it's just a 2-3 minute video and then the game just drops you right in the middle of the fight before you can change any of your settings for try to figure out what's happening. Second issue is that you unlock certification points really slowly and it's pretty much pay to win. But the gameplay makes up for all of the games flaws. Planetside 2 is worth playing and it's absolutely free. 8/10…Expand

i writed a long page but managed to delet it :(
but this is the best online multiplayer shooter mmo coop game in all time and its F2P. and no its not a P2W cuz you start with one of the best weapons! have never felt like "oh my god i die cuz they had bether gun" thats just and you cant buy sights for you weapon or uppgrades to your char with SC youneed to earn it ingame. this getsi writed a long page but managed to delet it :(
but this is the best online multiplayer shooter mmo coop game in all time and its F2P. and no its not a P2W cuz you start with one of the best weapons! have never felt like "oh my god i die cuz they had bether gun" thats just and you cant buy sights for you weapon or uppgrades to your char with SC youneed to earn it ingame. this gets 98/100 it could be easier to get the in game cash, But SOE said they will make it easier. So 100/100 if they fix that! You got every thing to win if you try this out!…Expand

Current Opinion & Thoughts on Planetside 2:
This game is addicting for me, it is not about the kills, it prioritizes objectives and relies on the player's patience and actual skill. Planetside 2 truly relates to Battlefield on a larger scale, and I say this as a compliment because Battlefield is a well designed game with usually balance flaws instead ofReview Last Updated: 6/17/13

Current Opinion & Thoughts on Planetside 2:
This game is addicting for me, it is not about the kills, it prioritizes objectives and relies on the player's patience and actual skill. Planetside 2 truly relates to Battlefield on a larger scale, and I say this as a compliment because Battlefield is a well designed game with usually balance flaws instead of gameplay experience flaws.

Learning Curve & Tutorial:
Let's admit it, the game has a large learning curve, especially with vehicles and how weapons function. The tutorial does not nearly cover all of that, and I do hope they update the tutorial to add most of the controls within Planetside 2 (does not include vehicles currently, and some certain Infantry controls). The tutorial does not cover usage of the map or certs which I find are core components of the game. My suggestion is, learn all the infantry controls at least along with some vehicular controls (mainly the flash and harasser that can be used for transport, aircrafts are too difficult for those unaware of how to use them) and play in VR Training to understand the game more. As of now, the game basically forces you into immediate combat which is relatively daunting and difficult to adapt towards for those not familiar towards the game.

Gameplay:
This game utilizes projectile based weapons, meaning all of the weapons requires some form of skill and usage of accuracy. Hitscan requires little to no tactics behind using the gun whereas the projectile system (similar to Battlefield 3) adds another dimension towards weapons and adds to the game's already high skill cap. Planetside 2 is addicting if you're patient in the game, you cannot expect a kill every minute unfortunately, and you cannot kill people as fast as you would be able to in other First Persion Shooters. There will always be flaws in balancing weapons in an FPS and balance in general. The default weapons you receive is average and quite useful thankfully and all weapons serve their own purpose. Alerts (2 hours events with a 15 minute preparation time) only add to the depth of the experience. Alerts are events that demand all 3 factions to conquer certain territories over the course of 2 hours and grants experience from a pool of 10 split into 3 based on how well each faction did.

Vehicular gameplay only expands the entertainment, usage of vehicles are important for control of the map. Having different vehicles which serve different purposes definitely makes the gameplay more dynamic especially with both ground and aerial vehicles. However, mastering the vehicle takes time (because of both certification points and actual experience), they cost resources (they are more expensive after Game Update 11) and have a cooldown. This prevents spamming of vehicles and the ability to actually savor the vehicle you buy.

GUI/HUD:
Again, like everything in this game, it takes a while to memorize the HUD and actual interface. I can't imagine someone memorizing everything after 1 hour of gameplay but after you do memorize it, the HUD/GUI is clean and useful. It's not too cluttered and everything has its purpose. However I would like to note to use the centralized HUD option that is found in the settings (it's much cleaner and easier to use).

Graphics:
Planetside 2 is a beautiful game. The environment at max settings is just stunning and the beauty of the game is what makes it more attractive. When driving across environments, I always look around to see the amazing textures and details around me (especially in Amerish). However, even at the lowest settings, I do not believe this game is optimized for that because this is quite a demanding game. Even some of my friends cannot play this game while being able to run others perfectly. I can play on Ultra at 50 FPS but that's just me.Being able to play this game at its max settings personally enhances the experience for me.

Currency:
I personally felt that currency needed to have its own section. This game utilizes certification points or certs as an abbreviation for the free currency. You earn 1 cert every 250 XP you receive in the game. Upgrades to your class and weapons can be purchased with this currency. However, some upgrades can cost up to 400 certs while some weapons can cost up to 1,000 certs which means you may have to spend days of playing just to receive a new weapon or ability. However you do have the option of trying out a weapon. The main issue is that if you intend to buy a weapon, you have to sacrifice not upgrading your class or vehicles and the weapon only applies to one class meaning everything you buy is only for the class you purchased it for. Same goes for everything else. I cannot comment on Station Cash due to character limit.

Summary:
In closing, Planetside 2 is a an aesthetically pleasing and entertaining game that also happens to be free to play. It's been an enjoyable experience so far and offers a new variety of gameplay.…Expand

The original learning curve was a pain in the ass. But, now, because SOE has listened to the people who have the potential to give them money, they added links to tutorials right in the launcher. Honestly, the alerts are not all that fun. They turn the game from strategy to just masses of people in a tiny spot and COD.

Each update provides... problems with balance. If you want to haveThe original learning curve was a pain in the ass. But, now, because SOE has listened to the people who have the potential to give them money, they added links to tutorials right in the launcher. Honestly, the alerts are not all that fun. They turn the game from strategy to just masses of people in a tiny spot and COD.

Each update provides... problems with balance. If you want to have an easy time before getting in to the whole "shoot before getting shot" idea, go for a medic position, or an engineer driving a sunder/medium battle tank. You get certs like crazy from healing or repairing, and sunderer spawns get you a massive amount of experience, for parking a bus.

Also, an important fact is that each faction is suited to a certain type of play style. The NC is for people who like doing lots of damage, without using a lot of ammo. They require you to be fairly accurate, and account for bullet drop on the spot, or go CQC.

TR is mostly for COD players, where they move quickly, and spam bullets. After all, they have the fastest firing weapons in the game. Their real strength seems to lie within their airforce, as they are incredibly fast compared to any others, and dodge most small arms fire.

The Vanu have the best accuracy and very little bullet drop, if any. However, their weapons just don't do enough damage if you don't aim. Their weapons are best suited to medium range combat, where you don't need to worry so much about getting hit by the NC, and the TR are even less accurate.

I have problems with running this game on older computers, as I seem to get ~30 FPS on an ATI Radeon HD 5570, but it is still more than playable.

I honestly think there are so many scenarios, you should try the game out. The download time is worth it, I promise :)…Expand

Air vehicles are useless since 80 of the servers are running with max.s with unlocked Anti air guns ,
Really poor optimised cant run well on my i5 2500k & 6970 radeon Sides are unbalanced as hell Red guys are the best since they have most fastest fire rate Blue guys weapons hit hard but have high recoil & slow rpm making them worst in game .
DrawFree to play pay to win

Air vehicles are useless since 80 of the servers are running with max.s with unlocked Anti air guns ,
Really poor optimised cant run well on my i5 2500k & 6970 radeon Sides are unbalanced as hell Red guys are the best since they have most fastest fire rate Blue guys weapons hit hard but have high recoil & slow rpm making them worst in game .

Draw distance kills this game Flew bomber plane with 3 seats and unlocked some nice stuff to it AA cannon at the rear is useless against skilled fighter pilots and you are just free score Draw distance comes into play when flying you see enemy AA max when you are like 50 meters away from him and he can see you from 200-300 meters away GG rly .

TLDR Overrated game pay to win unbalanced was fun for the first 20-30 hours.…Expand

After reading reviews here, I got good news: a lot of issues described early were fixed. There is a tutorial, tapping "home" drops in in combat (in a pod) in 10 seconds, tapping delete lets you respawn at a different spawn point in 10-30 seconds. I'm getting decent FPS on an average RIG with GTS 250. The game has a lot of promise, but the fun quickly dies down, once you realize that everyAfter reading reviews here, I got good news: a lot of issues described early were fixed. There is a tutorial, tapping "home" drops in in combat (in a pod) in 10 seconds, tapping delete lets you respawn at a different spawn point in 10-30 seconds. I'm getting decent FPS on an average RIG with GTS 250. The game has a lot of promise, but the fun quickly dies down, once you realize that every gun, every ability and every vehicle sucks unless you spend money (to buy new guns) and time to grind upgrades for these guns. After I spent 20 hours grinding upgrades, it hit me that I'm a veteran FPS player, have positive K/D here, but am not having that much fun. Killing infantry is not satisfying. Guns all look the same, sound the same and are kinda bland. There's no character to guns whatsover (for example Brink had similar attachment/customization for guns, and somehow guns were more satisfying). The "wow factor" of this game is huge scale, but you will quickly learn that just like in all MMOs, there are small groups and zergs running around the map, capping points that are not contested. I saw some large balanced battles in the 20 hours I played, but those are fairly rare. Most of the time it is one zerg camping the spawn building in a base for 5 minutes before moving on. There's a small number of fighting vehicles in this game 2 tanks, 2 planes, 2 light vehicles. Yet they feel bland and lifeless. Everything is nerfed to avoid 1 hit kills. Compare a tank from Battlefield 2 or a mech from Battlefield 2142 to "lightining" tank from planetside or a MAX unit, and you see just how boring planetside vehicles are. There's a lot of grinding in this game, and if you like it, you will enjoy the game.…Expand

The game is fun none the less but has fllaws..
Graphics: + Phsyx is in this game (but currently turned off)
+ The environment and changing of day and night is a nice touch
- blurry/low res areas
- Not really something special compared to other games but due to the size of the planet... its good
Gameplay:
+ The game is a nice futuristic game and plays out well and is much moreThe game is fun none the less but has fllaws..
Graphics: + Phsyx is in this game (but currently turned off)
+ The environment and changing of day and night is a nice touch
- blurry/low res areas
- Not really something special compared to other games but due to the size of the planet... its good

Gameplay:
+ The game is a nice futuristic game and plays out well and is much more exciting than halo 4
+ It really draws you into the war feeling since there is a lot going on
+ Vehicles are fun and useful
+ You can upgrade basically anything you want to and use the classes you like the best or all of them
- When you are cornered the game feels like a repetitive camp fest where the other team wont back off and you continuously die BUT if you spawn elsewhere there isn't really any helping the team fight at all.
- bugs, bugs , bugs, bugs, and more bugs... Some people with lag or bad computers teleport and go through walls... some people can be looking 1 way on your screen and actually be looking at you on yours.

Sounds:
+ Nice in game music (AT TIMES)
+ Have their own sounds for guns
- You can randomly hear people talk on their mic that aren't in your squad - Not really the best "killed by" screen..

Other:
+ You can buy skins, etc. to pimp out your characters/vehicles
- You can buy weapons, etc. instead of saving up to purchase them with in game currency so in a way it's too easy for some to have much better weapons.

The game is fun, new, frustrating at times, and buggy. Basically it evens out although it still needs some polishing and the performance isn't really the best I've seen but that's okay since it just came out.…Expand

I didn't really like this game so I'll just focus on the bad points in order of most annoyances.
1) Big **** mindless open world pvp, strategy and tactic is hard to pull off when you need either 100 people cooperating or your up agaisn't 100 enemies. Just so very mindless unless you hit low populated areas. 2) Certs are extremely slowly rewarded, frustrating stuck with starter weapons andI didn't really like this game so I'll just focus on the bad points in order of most annoyances.
1) Big **** mindless open world pvp, strategy and tactic is hard to pull off when you need either 100 people cooperating or your up agaisn't 100 enemies. Just so very mindless unless you hit low populated areas. 2) Certs are extremely slowly rewarded, frustrating stuck with starter weapons and bored. 3) Pay2FastTrack game (another form of P2W) want to try lots of things and have fun? If you could Pay $60 to unlock everything (likes a normal game) that would be an absolute bargain in PS2, but you know they are greedy. 4) Yes it's a large scale game, but those graphics are ugly as hell, nothing stands out its just dull unless you are flying. 5) Overall ok game to start with but how you play you realise there are better games out there to play instead, on a side note Sony will kill H1Z1 if it has anything like a PS2 item shop.…Expand

An addicting and and pleasant surprise to the MMO genre in short. The impressive draw distance coupled with impressive graphical fidelity for such a massive game does give the good impression of a massive, persistent open world. While the landscape and locations are decently varied from location to location somewhat less care was given to player assets such as weapons and vehicles.An addicting and and pleasant surprise to the MMO genre in short. The impressive draw distance coupled with impressive graphical fidelity for such a massive game does give the good impression of a massive, persistent open world. While the landscape and locations are decently varied from location to location somewhat less care was given to player assets such as weapons and vehicles. Roughly half of the vehicles available to each race are the same as the ones available to the others. As well as the vast majority of the weapons are shamelessly visual copy and pastes with very minor changes if any at all, only having changes in their stats. Despite this each race has a unique look and style that works for them. The game play is the old tried and true class based multi-player first person shooter. Each class has their own special abilities and equipment that can be upgraded using "certs". This is where the balance issues start to glare at you. Acquiring certs is paced like dragging a 1000 pound bag of sand down an endless road through 2 feet of snow, stopping every ten miles to receive a dollar to put towards a million dollar sleigh to help you pull the bag faster. What I'm trying to say is that it's a free to play game, but it's pay to win. The people who choose to invest in the game will stand head and shoulders above those who actually want a free to play game. This obvious issue turns certain players into bullet sponges while leaving others as glass tissues on the battlefield. While you're given bonuses for investing larger amounts in the game, the cost of weapons in the game probably lies between 6 and 7 dollars on average. Given that there are hundreds of things to buy, and certs and spent money don't carry over to other characters you create, this is a huge problem. I might be focusing a lot on this, but it really is a glaring issue. If you can find the time to acquire enough certs however you'll find a functional and enjoyable FPS that offers massive battles on a scale that we haven't seen in games since the total war franchise. The levels are laid out on a honeycomb gird that shows territories that are fought over by the three factions. The levels have varying terrain with strong holds and towns dotting the landscape. There's a unique feel to each of the continents you fight on, and each base type have a different strategy required to take control. While the actual bases and building are going to start to seem familiar to frequent players it's the area around the bases that creates a new and distinct feel at each location. A strange bit of poor design, being a little richer due to better environmental design. Overall, I give PlanetSide 2 a 7 out of 10.…Expand

There is a lot of people who write that the game is riddled with bugs and hackers. But that's a straight up lie. I play on lithcorp EU and have only experienced minor bugs, that's it.

The good part is the massive battles, solid gameplay, the good graphics and faction difference.
If you play in a squad or in a outfit you will have the most fun, coordinating attacks and executing squadThere is a lot of people who write that the game is riddled with bugs and hackers. But that's a straight up lie. I play on lithcorp EU and have only experienced minor bugs, that's it.

The good part is the massive battles, solid gameplay, the good graphics and faction difference.
If you play in a squad or in a outfit you will have the most fun, coordinating attacks and executing squad strategies. it's a awesome sight when a horde of soldiers is pushing trough a chockepoint, or a zerg of tanks is rolling trough the indar desert devestating the opposition. That feeling is not found in any other game. The Bad part: many of the weapons look and feel similar, the unlock prosess feel a littlebit grindy, some minor bugs, some balance issues (smal ones) and a steep learningcurve (no tutorial and explanation for what's going on).
You CAN ulock everything (not cosmetic items) just by playing, but it will take alot of time.
And the starting weapons and loadouts are very good, it's almost all skillbased how good you will do in the game.
So it's a OK Microtransactions system, but time-consuming if you don't want to spend a dime.

Download and try it for yourself, You have nothing to loose since it's F2P =)…Expand

Incredibly beautiful and breathtaking game. The map designs are brilliant. At the moment there are only 3 maps (continents) but each of them are huge. You never feel it getting monotonous or boring unlike BF3 or other modern military shooters. The Dev's have put a lot of thought into the design of this game and at no point do you feel its aspects being unbalanced. Every tank zerg or airIncredibly beautiful and breathtaking game. The map designs are brilliant. At the moment there are only 3 maps (continents) but each of them are huge. You never feel it getting monotonous or boring unlike BF3 or other modern military shooters. The Dev's have put a lot of thought into the design of this game and at no point do you feel its aspects being unbalanced. Every tank zerg or air brigade can be countered with a little bit of team work. The only criticism would be its current level of optimization and slow certification progress, which the devs are working on. Again, unlike said mms shooters devs, these guys have listened to the community and changed a lots of aspects of the game for the better since beta. You can play this game by yourself and appreciate its beauty as the day night cycles go on but it truly shines when you are playing with a group of friends or with a platoon of people working together. Highly recommend watching some tutorials on youtube though as it can be confusing for completely new players. Once you get the hang of it though you will enjoy this game immensely.…Expand

Let my start by saying that if you don't like this game, you suck, PS2 is the best F2P FPS I have ever played in my life. Even a lone wolf could destroy with a sniper and some creativity, best of all you can not camp or cheat. Sony also does not seem to have any reason to make this game pay to win and so far, none of the paid unlocks are really that good. Its a well rounded game thatLet my start by saying that if you don't like this game, you suck, PS2 is the best F2P FPS I have ever played in my life. Even a lone wolf could destroy with a sniper and some creativity, best of all you can not camp or cheat. Sony also does not seem to have any reason to make this game pay to win and so far, none of the paid unlocks are really that good. Its a well rounded game that destroys its competition with its new ideal and MMO style. Great fun for all players.…Expand

This game has freemium written all over it.
For starters, the game looks pretty good.
Another great aspect is that this game is very strategic; provided there are these kinds of people online.
It's true that this game just throws you into battle but this is to make sure you don't meander your way into battle. Your thrown in and go.
The three factions are also well balanced withThis game has freemium written all over it.
For starters, the game looks pretty good.
Another great aspect is that this game is very strategic; provided there are these kinds of people online.
It's true that this game just throws you into battle but this is to make sure you don't meander your way into battle. Your thrown in and go.
The three factions are also well balanced with benefits given if your side has less people.
People are both a benefit and a drawback to this game. More people = more fun. Less people = less fun. This is very much an MMO.
One of the biggest drawbacks for Planetside 2 is the store. Everything just costs too much and it doesn't seem worth giving actual money to because no real advantage is given; just a few perks here and there.
This game is still very much not finished so it would be best to keep an eye on it but no necessarily get it.
This is a game I recommend with an asterix the size of the moon and you should consider carefully, even if it is free, whether this is for you.…Expand

If you have someone to play this with or a group of people than its one of the most enjoyable games, however if your caught alone game-play gets a bit repetitive. On a side note there's no real tutorial or way to learn the game, unless you have a friend that plays it. It basically forces you to use vehicles outside the bases because of all the tanks that normally roam around.

Before i start i would like to point out that this game is FREE, to those of you giving a FREE game of this quality a zero your quite frankly completely wrong. Unlike many free games Planetside 2 is not a pay to win although you can pay to unlock weapons they can all be unlocked without paying a penny, only skins require real money to obtain.

The game is by no means perfect there's aBefore i start i would like to point out that this game is FREE, to those of you giving a FREE game of this quality a zero your quite frankly completely wrong. Unlike many free games Planetside 2 is not a pay to win although you can pay to unlock weapons they can all be unlocked without paying a penny, only skins require real money to obtain.

The game is by no means perfect there's a steep learning curve that can be a pain to get passed and getting dropped into the action when its on such a huge scale can be disorientating and frustrating to new players. The weapons unlock quite slowly and there is no real end game no faction can actually lose.

Now with that out the way Planetside 2 is possibly the most epic experience you can have on any game, thousands of people fighting epic battles with aircraft tanks and infantry is just amazing to be apart of. Especially with some friends or a decent squad or outfit where you work as a team to capture of defend strongholds. This game far surfaces other FPS games like Halo and COD in my opinion and does so on a scale that's beyond belief and all this from a free game.

There is no reason not to try this game its free and wont cost you a penny get some friends on Skype or teamspeak and you will have a great time.…Expand

Planetside 2 is a very solid game, Beautiful graphics and fun vehicles and weapons. And some advice join a squad for the best experience. There are a few bugs and glitches, very few are game breaking but I have there have been a few time's where I would empty a entire magazine of 40 rounds in to a enemies head and it wouldn't hurt them yet they shoot me 2 and I die. Make sure you findPlanetside 2 is a very solid game, Beautiful graphics and fun vehicles and weapons. And some advice join a squad for the best experience. There are a few bugs and glitches, very few are game breaking but I have there have been a few time's where I would empty a entire magazine of 40 rounds in to a enemies head and it wouldn't hurt them yet they shoot me 2 and I die. Make sure you find out which of the 3 factions have the best attributes. The Terren Republic have large magazine's and high fire rates and fast vehicles. The New Conglomerate have hard hitting weapons, powerful and strong vehicles, and awesome music. The Vanu Sovereighnty have the best air vehicles along, High accuracy and laser weapons.…Expand

The game is absolutely amazing. However, it is quiet a bit complicated to learn, (but substantially easier than the original Planetside) and it is SPRAWLING with hackers. Certain weapons are over-powered and some are under-powered. The system they use to show a gun's damage, fire rate, etc. is screwed up. And if you want to have a better playing experience, you'll have to pay for aThe game is absolutely amazing. However, it is quiet a bit complicated to learn, (but substantially easier than the original Planetside) and it is SPRAWLING with hackers. Certain weapons are over-powered and some are under-powered. The system they use to show a gun's damage, fire rate, etc. is screwed up. And if you want to have a better playing experience, you'll have to pay for a membership. But let's look at the positive things: If you like Multiplayer FPS, then this is for you. The size of each of the three maps blows my mind. You're familiar with your Call of Duty maps? Well try putting 20+ of those on a map and spacing them well apart. That's how big these maps are. The entire originality of this game is appealing and the fun never stops. The people who don't like it? most likely the same people who only play COD... on xbox. Once you get the hang of this game, you'll have a blast!…Expand

The PS2 isn't to bad for a F2P. Graphics are... ok could be better but whatever and they are doing pretty good with bug fixes. Big battles are pretty fun I have to say. I do hope they change a few things. Sometimes it just feels like you just zerg areas and why not they don't really reward you for defending a point. Why would you defend a point other than to just shoot enemies. Now if letsThe PS2 isn't to bad for a F2P. Graphics are... ok could be better but whatever and they are doing pretty good with bug fixes. Big battles are pretty fun I have to say. I do hope they change a few things. Sometimes it just feels like you just zerg areas and why not they don't really reward you for defending a point. Why would you defend a point other than to just shoot enemies. Now if lets say point A would give you the ability to spawn air craft (like the 1st PlanetSide) unlike now when you can do it from day one. I think maybe the battles would be more... meaningful? Or maybe just boasts like extra ammo or faster travel speeds? Also the constant Nerf to items (IE hill climb which I don't know if its broken or a Nerf to he honest) Yes I know it happens but they should refund cert if that do major changes like this. Maybe I'm just not a F2P kinda gamer. But for a F2P game it's a good time with friends.…Expand

Planetside 2 is a definitive First Person Shooter. This game will change your perception of what is and isn't a truly massive war title. The open world, massive player base, and pure fun this game brings to the table makes this a good title for any PC gamer. That's not to say PS2 is flawless. Far from it. The learning curve is much too steep, and I personally dislike their pay-to-win-esquePlanetside 2 is a definitive First Person Shooter. This game will change your perception of what is and isn't a truly massive war title. The open world, massive player base, and pure fun this game brings to the table makes this a good title for any PC gamer. That's not to say PS2 is flawless. Far from it. The learning curve is much too steep, and I personally dislike their pay-to-win-esque profit style. Still, any FPS aviciando should definitely give Planetside 2 a look.…Expand

I played planetside 1 for many years and looked forward to PS2 in 2012. But on release I hated so much about it that I walked away (back to BF3). Roll on several months to June 2013 and I decided to give it another go and I'm sooooo glad I did. PS2 is now fantastic fun. It feels very polished and there is a huge amount of varied fun to be had. Interestingly in PS1 I played in an outfitI played planetside 1 for many years and looked forward to PS2 in 2012. But on release I hated so much about it that I walked away (back to BF3). Roll on several months to June 2013 and I decided to give it another go and I'm sooooo glad I did. PS2 is now fantastic fun. It feels very polished and there is a huge amount of varied fun to be had. Interestingly in PS1 I played in an outfit throughout but for PS2 I play solo as heavy assault my k/d is nearly 2:1 and contrary to other reviewers I find it very easy to have fun without joining a squad. However I do recommend you walk away from battles which are clearly unwinnable. I'm having so much fun that the ps4/xbox one choice became simple for me PS4 simply because it will have PS2 on it.…Expand

It is a shame that it is released too quickly, you can definitely spot a lot of thing that are wrong with the game at this point, but whatever the case, i feel like this game deserves to do well, i wasn't sure if an FPS and MMO mixed together would work, but i was luckily very wrong, it's so good,

The good... Maps are amazing, sound is great, grafics are good for a game of this scale, it's free. The bad... bugs, no in-game tutorials, hard learning curve, pay-to-win. And more importantly... you fight for nothing. The last point is what annoys me the most about this game. I would have given it a good 8 or even 9, but i have to be honest. You virtually fight for nothing. The continentThe good... Maps are amazing, sound is great, grafics are good for a game of this scale, it's free. The bad... bugs, no in-game tutorials, hard learning curve, pay-to-win. And more importantly... you fight for nothing. The last point is what annoys me the most about this game. I would have given it a good 8 or even 9, but i have to be honest. You virtually fight for nothing. The continent is persistent and each faction has a safe zone near their gate that cannot be conquered. This means that no empire can trully conquer a continent, and thus you have no solid goals in this game. You managed to expend the control of your empire on the continent? Pointless, log-in the next day and you'll need to conquer them again. Over and over and over... This is a big flaw in my opinion. But if you don't mind killing stuff for no reason, this game is just for you. Dust 514 is more promissing i think. Sure it has a smaller scale, it's on the PS3 only, grafics are good but not on par with PS2. BUT... you fight for something, what you do has consequences. And that alone my friends makes Dust a much better game.…Expand

Fun to play, missing prone / vault though and weapons could be cheaper for ingame currency, other than that like i said before: Planetside 2 offers alot of EPIC fun for a free game, dont hesitate to try it, its free!

"OMG it has bugs! And my computer sucks!" Seriously? This game is miles ahead of every first person shooter on the market right now and people nitpick it? It has flaws, the render distance needs to be increased and there are a couple of balance issues, and there are aformentioned bugs...... but did I mention its a 3 faction all out war on a miles wide map with hundreds of people?

I'd honestly give it an 8 but I'm only giving it a 10 due to the nonsensical 0 ratings here. I was never a fan of FPS although I've tried Battlefield and Call of Duty series for an extended period of time. Planetside 2 is the most epic fun I have had since World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade. I have been addicted to Diablo 3 with the expectation of an epic gaming journey, but soonI'd honestly give it an 8 but I'm only giving it a 10 due to the nonsensical 0 ratings here. I was never a fan of FPS although I've tried Battlefield and Call of Duty series for an extended period of time. Planetside 2 is the most epic fun I have had since World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade. I have been addicted to Diablo 3 with the expectation of an epic gaming journey, but soon realized that it was a failure to begin with. The game was difficult to learn, but after about a month, I was hooked. Planetside 2 has definite negatives: occasional server lag, and poor optimization. I had to buy a brand new computer just to play this game on maximum settings. Hackers are always looming around annoying loyal members, but I can tell SOE is doing their best to keep fixing and improving. The game itself is an awesome masterpiece with a good outlook for a long time to come.…Collapse

The shooter fundamentals are all there. The visuals are great but the progression just doesn't seem to deliver any payoff for players outside of the hardcore. It's not quite as much of a shameless cash grab as something out of Zynga, but it definitely sours the experience.

It might look overly complicated, but PlanetSide 2 is nothing more than your average class-based, objective-oriented competitive FPS. What makes it stand apart from other F2P games (aside from the huge servers, of course) is the co-operation factor with other players. [February 2013]